


Death suits you well

by infandomswetrust



Series: Redemption [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: A lot of pain, Canon-Typical Violence, Love Hurts, M/M, Major Character Injury, Nostalgia, Pain, Scene Rewrite, but i think it might actually be a make it worse fic, especially hannigram, mentions of dark!will, you could call it a fix-it fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 04:42:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1765855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infandomswetrust/pseuds/infandomswetrust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A rewrite of the kitchen scene in Mizumono with a bit more Hannigram.<br/>Still painful. Maybe not as painful as the episode. Maybe more. I don't know. Read at your own risk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death suits you well

So many things he could say. So many things he should say.

“You were supposed to leave.”

So little he did say. He stared at the man who had once been his anchor. Who had pulled him under water and watched him drown, only to pull him up again. To revive him. To resurrect him as something new.

“We couldn’t leave without you.”

 _We_. A simple word that had had an entirely different meaning minutes earlier. He fought the urge to turn around, to make sure she was still there, that she hadn’t been another morbid hallucination, following her father’s footsteps in his haunting. Instead, his gaze remained fixed on Hannibal. His eyes indefinitely locked with Hannibal’s. Seeing clearly, and finally, _finally_ letting him see clearly as well. He had nothing left to hide. Masks dropped, teacups shattered. They were truly even. Equal. No barrier left. No secret. No bait. The fisherman had been caught by his own hooks, hanging next to the fish, unable to free either of them. He felt the presence of a knife, rather than seeing it. He took a step backwards and raised his gun.

“You are destroying your own efforts, Dr. Lecter. Forcing me to hide behind a gun again.”

“You never had to hide. Not from me. I let you see me, Will. I gave you a rare gift, but you didn’t want it.”

“No. I returned it. I saw. I adapted. I let you show me. I didn’t have the choice of not wanting it. You were the only thing-“ his voice broke and he couldn’t stop a tear from running down his face. He swallowed hard and tasted blood on his tongue. Jack’s blood, the scent heavy and metallic in the thick, tension-filled air. He wondered if he was still alive. If he could hear them.

“The only thing? No, Will. I was never the _only_ thing. You let your perception be tainted, influenced by things other than me.”

“Did you not taint my perception? Did you not influence me?”

“I thought I did. I used to think you were like me. A beautiful creature hiding behind its own fear. Waiting to be unleashed. But I was wrong.” He shook his head slightly and Will saw emotions that shouldn’t be there in his eyes. That couldn’t be there.

“You were playing your own game. Playing with fire, William. All this time you were hiding behind a hunt. Hunting what was already running to you. You would deny my life-“

“No. Not your life,” Will interrupted him, his voice weak and tears and rain streaming down his face.

“Just my freedom then, you would take that from me. Confine me to a prison cell. Did you believe you could change me the way I changed you?”

“I already did.”

Silence fell upon the room, only Abigail’s breath serving as a silent reminder how painfully real this all was. This wasn’t another nightmare. There was no waking up, no remedy from this madness, no foreseeable end. A gun raised, determined to shoot, but anything but ready. A knife grasped, ready to slice, but anything but determined.

“Why did you warn me?” Hannibal asked, his voice steadier than before, as he took a step closer to Will. Not threatening. Calculating.

The Will he had been yesterday would have said because he was curious what would happen. But he wasn’t that same man anymore, another shell shattered. Another skin dropped. Evolve. Become.

“You know why. It was my only way of apologizing. I couldn’t undo the damage, but I believed I could prevent further damage from being done.”

Too little, too late. He knew that now.

“You set off a motion, Will. You dropped the teacup. Nothing you could have done would have prevented it from shattering. Fate and time have returned us to this moment,” Hannibal said, closing the last bit of distance.

His hand reached up and crossed the invisible line the raised gun was drawing between them. Will stared into his eyes and saw himself, reflected in the crimson speckled maroon. The touch didn’t shock him as much as the tenderness in it, the familiarity. The memory from that night in the stable shot into his head. He hadn’t been hiding back then. Hadn’t been pretending. His mask had been cracking and he wanted to tell Hannibal, tell him that it hadn’t all been lies. Tell him that he had won. In the end, he had won the fight over Will’s conscience. Will’s loyalty. No words left his mouth. He saw the fire in Hannibal’s eyes and felt it burning inside his own body. The tears on his face felt like gasoline and Hannibal’s hand like the match, threatening to light up any second and burn him down. He leaned into the touch nonetheless. If he would burn, he would only want Hannibal’s fire to ignite him. The older man leaned in, ignoring both knife and gun that separated them and his lips found the shell of Will’s ear.

“Patroclus died in Achilles’ arms,” Hannibal whispered, his voice as broken as Will felt. Will swallowed and buried his face in the crook of Hannibal’s neck.

“Achilles didn’t kill him,” he answered. It wasn’t meant as a plea and he knew it wasn’t received as such.

The hand that was now buried in the hair on the back of his head tightened and pulled his head back until he could look at Hannibal again, their faces inches apart. The older man looked at him in a way Will had never seen anyone look at anything.

“I love you, Will.”

He felt lips, drenched in blood and tears pressing to his own, seconds before he felt the knife. His hand was clutching at the gun, still determined to shoot but making no move. What did it matter now. Taking Hannibal down with him wouldn’t be a victory. If anything it would deepen his defeat.

He felt the knife tearing at his skin, the sharp pain tearing sobs from him that were shushed by the mouth on his, by the lips that desperately tried to soothe the pain. He focused on the feeling of safety that still remained, even now, among the shatters of everything else. He tasted the blood in his mouth, tasted the tears, tasted the pain. Not only his own pain, Hannibal’s pain. The desperation. He felt his conscience drifting, felt the world growing darker and dropped his head with a muffled cry, forcing the lips to leave his own. He tried to say something, wanted to say it back, knowing it might be his last chance. He wanted to tell him, wanted him to know, wanted him to hear it.

“I-“ was all he brought out, his voice barely recognizable. Hannibal cupped his face again and pressed their foreheads together, his eyes filled with nothing but agony.

“I know,” he whispered and twisted the knife.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Whoever made it this far, I am so so sorry.  
> I could provide Mason with a life long supply of martinis with the tears I cried over writing this. I. Am. So. Sorry.
> 
> Also I'm aware Patroclus didn't exactly die in Achilles' arms but for the sake of this story let's pretend he did.


End file.
